If there is one thing you can rely on the internet for (other than DCist and abundant pornography) it is a near infinite stream of trends and buzzwords. As the internet grows beyond its humble roots as a military communications network and porn depository, it not only expands, but matures, which inevitably leads to a blizzard of hype. So as media and data shed their traditional forms and continue to evolve online, it is important to carefully separate the digital chaff from the grain.

Case in point: The Podcast. What exactly is a podcast? Though we’d like to think our own ‘cast fits the truest ideal of the word (unique, worthwhile audio content available via RSS), but it seems that any digital audio file, regardless of what it is or how it is distributed, can be billed as a podcast; now anybody with a $3 Radio Shack microphone and Windows Sound Recorder can bestow an air of legitimacy onto their otherwise inane ramblings about Fantasy Hockey.

So too it has been for the mashup, a genre capable of being much more than a novelty if executed well, but one that consistently (and irritatingly) falls short of its potential; for every Grey Album, there are ten Q-Units. The difference between say, Siik’s brilliant melding of Amerie’s “One Thing” and an obscure anime soundtrack and some lout who decides to clumsily jam together Nelly and Neil Diamond is the difference between true vision and ingenuity, and lazily falling back on a gimmicky buzzword in an attempt to capitalize on its current hype. This distinction is equally important when the attempted mashup is one of metadata, instead of music. “Mashup” applications that hybridize and deliver data in an original form have an even greater potential for innovation than their MP3 brethren, but are just as susceptible to gimmickitis.

So when we learned that the Post had launched a Post Remix site, hailed as “The Post’s Official Mashup Center,” we couldn’t help but groan at first. We feared this would be one of those desperate, cringe-inducing attempts at modernity, akin to your mother casually saying “bling bling.” What we found instead though was surprisingly interesting, albeit a bit scant at the moment. One of the applications, a tag cloud application (see what we mean about buzzwords?) called NewsCloud, compiles a Flickr-style list of persons, places, and things recently mentioned in the Post, sizing them according to prevalence. While such a “mashup” will not replace washingtonpost.com, it doesn’t intend to. Instead, it provides a new and unique way to look at “news” itself. While there are only two entries listed as of now, the project has only been up a week, so be sure to check back. More information about the project, including terms of use for potential projects of your own, can be found at the site.